The Hondurans who banded together last month to travel northward to the United States, fleeing gangs, corruption and poverty, were joined by other Central Americans hoping to find safety in numbers on this perilous journey.

But group travel couldnt save everyone.

Earlier this month, two trucks from the caravan disappeared in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. One person who escaped told officials that about 65 children and seven women were sold by the driver to a group of armed men.

Mexican authorities are searching for the migrants, but history shows that people missing for more than 24 hours are rarely found in Mexico alive or at all.

Nearly 22,000 people were murdered in Mexico in the first eight months of this year, a dismal record in one of the worlds deadliest places.

Central Americans fleeing similarly rampant violence back home confront those risks and others on their journey to the United States. Doctors Without Borders found that over two-thirds of migrants surveyed in Mexico in 2014 experienced violence en route. One-third of women had been sexually abused.

Mexicos security crisis may explain why so few caravan members want to stay there.

In response to President Donald Trumps demands that Mexico stop this onslaught, Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto announced that migrants who applied for asylum at Mexicos southern border would be given shelter, medical attention, schooling and jobs.

About 1,700 of the estimated 5,000 caravan members took him up on the offer.

Meanwhile, everyday Mexicans are greeting the migrants as they pass through their towns, donating food, clothing, lodging and transport.

A recent poll shows that 51% of Mexicans support the caravan. Thirty-three percent of respondents, many of them affluent members of Mexicos urban middle class, want the migrants to go back to Central America.

Meanwhile, new applications for asylum in Mexico continued to pour in a record 14,596 were filed last year. The processing backlog is now two years.

During that period of legal limbo, asylum seekers cannot work, attend school or fully access Mexicos public health system. President-elect Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, who takes office on Dec. 1, says he will offer Central American migrants temporary working visas while their claims are processed.

U.S. law prohibits the use of the armed forces to enforce domestic laws without specific congressional authorization. That means the troops can only support border agents in deterring migrants.

But Trumps decision still has symbolic power. This is the first time in over a century that military troops have been summoned to defend the U.S.-Mexico border.

The last deployment occurred during the Mexican Revolution.

On March 9, 1916, a small band of revolutionaries led by Francisco Pancho Villa invaded Columbus, New Mexico.

After Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to the border and into Mexican territory. United States Air Force

Officially, the group assaulted the border city in retaliation for then-President Woodrow Wilsons support of Venustiano Carranza, Villas political rival. Villa also had a personal vendetta against Sam Ravel, a local man who had swindled money from him.

President Wilson responded by summoning General John J. Pershing, who assembled a force of 6,000 U.S. troops to chase Villa deep inside Mexicos northern territory. Pershings punitive expedition returned in early 1917 after failing to capture the revolutionary leader.

No relief at the border

Central Americans who reach the militarized United States border can still apply for asylum there, despite President Trumps recent executive order limiting where they may do so. But they face stiff odds.

After an evaluation process that can take months or years, the majority of Central American asylum claims filed in the United States 75 percent are denied. Caravan members rejected will be sent back to the same perilous place they fled last month.

Honduras has been in turmoil since 2009, when the military overthrew leftist President Manuel Zelaya. Rather than join the United Nations and European Union in demanding Zelayas reinstatement, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for new elections, effectively endorsing a coup.

The Central American caravan that started in Honduras seeks in the U.S. a life free of such violence. Its steady progress toward the border shows that even kidnappings, Trumps threats and soldiers cannot deter them.

(The writerLuis Goomez Romero is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, at the University of Wollongong).